Covid-19 outbreak 2020

Prime Minister Boris Johnson left intensive care on Thursday evening as he continues to recover from COVID-19, but he remains under close observation in hospital, his office said on Thursday. "The prime minister has been moved this evening from intensive care back to the ward, where he will receive close monitoring during the early phase of his recovery," a spokesman from his office said in an emailed statement. "He is in extremely good spirits."

French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said European Union member states had agreed to mobilise 1 trillion euros to shore up the economy in response to the coronavirus crisis, in the most important economic plan in the EU's history. Le Maire said on a call with reporters that the European Stability Mechanism will be activated with light conditionality. He also said the agreement will make 500 billion euros available immediately and that a recovery fund will follow.

Cosmonauts Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner, along with American astronaut Christopher Cassidy arrived today at the International Space Station (ISS) for a six-month mission in space. Before the takeoff, that took place in the Russian-controlled Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan; the three men spent a month in quarantine to keep them safe from the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

The supreme court of India has ordered that the government takes the necessary actions immediately, after ruling that all testing for the coronavirus must be done free of charge. This includes tests in both private and government laboratories.

Morgan Stanley's Chief Executive Officer James Gorman said he has fully recovered from the illness caused by the novel coronavirus, according to a video that was sent to the bank's employees on Thursday. Morgan Stanley had not disclosed earlier that Gorman had tested positive for the respiratory disease.

The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits in the last three weeks has topped 15 million, as weekly new claims topped 6 million for the second straight time last week. The Labor Department said first-time claims for unemployment benefits in the week ended April 4 totaled about 6.6 million, down modestly from an upwardly revised 6.87 million the week before.

Ireland's unemployment rate has risen to 16.5% at the end of March including those receiving emergency coronavirus jobless benefits, the state's statistics office said on Thursday. The new COVID-19-adjusted unemployment measure was based on the 283,037 people on the higher emergency payment and 207,200 on regular benefits at the end of the month. A further 224,000 received the emergency payment in the first three days of April, the employment affairs office said on Monday.

For the first time in history, the Chicago Animal Care and Control has announced that all animals have been adopted, following the spread of the coronavirus and the announcement of the stay at home order. Other shelters in Chicago have reported a similar increase in adoption rates, with some shelters adding waiting lists for people who want to adopt an animal. Julia Poukatch, a spokeswoman for PAWS Chicago said that "it’s times like these that we see the best in our community. From the beginning of this COVID-19 crisis, the outpouring of care and concern for our animals has been extraordinary".

The author has said that fans told him that the coronavirus pandemic feels "like we're living in a Stephen King story" and said his "only response to that is, 'I'm sorry'". Having covered the topic of a global pandemic in his book "The Stand" from 1978 the author added, "that sooner or later, there was going to be a virus that was going to communicate to the public at large".

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson's condition is improving and he is able to sit up in bed and engage with clinical staff, finance minister Rishi Sunak said on Wednesday as Johnson remained in intensive care battling COVID-19. "The latest from the hospital is that the prime minister remains in intensive care where his condition is improving," Sunak said at a daily government coronavirus news conference.

New Zealand will begin moving citizens to compulsory quarantine from Friday as they return from overseas, stepping up its efforts to slow the spread of the coronavirus halfway through a four-week nationwide lockdown. "No one goes home, everyone goes into a managed facility," Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said, adding that 14 days spent in a government-approved facility would be a prerequisite for all foreign travellers. "Even one person slipping through the cracks and bringing the virus in can see an explosion in cases, as we have observed with some of our bigger clusters," she told a media briefing in Wellington on Thursday.

Mexican authorities said on Wednesday that about 60 personnel across two more hospitals have tested positive for the coronavirus, adding to a wave of infections among medical workers, according to local authorities and media reports. The coronavirus was first detected at the hospital in Tlanepantla de Baz, in Mexico state just outside the capital, on March 10, the head of Mexico's social security institute (IMSS), Zoe Robledo, said at the president's regular news conference on Wednesday. At least 20 doctors tested positive there.

The United States will seize exports of key protective medical gear until it determines whether the equipment should be kept in the country to combat the spread of the new coronavirus, two federal agencies announced on Wednesday. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) will hold exports of respirators, surgical masks and surgical gloves, according to a joint announcement made with the Federal Emergency Management Agency. FEMA will then determine if the equipment should be returned for use in the United States, purchased by the U.S. government or exported.

The head of the World Health Organization gave a strident defence of his agency's handling of the coronavirus pandemic on Wednesday, in response to U.S. President Donald Trump's criticism and suggestions that Washington could review its funding for the agency. WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called for unity and a halt to "politicization" of the global health crisis, specifically urging China and the United States to show "honest leadership". Tedros said the WHO had "kept the world informed about the latest data, information and evidence" and noted that Thursday would mark 100 days since China first notified the organization of cases of "pneumonia with unknown cause" on Dec. 31.

Brazil's health minister said on Wednesday that the country's attempts to purchase thousands of ventilators from China to fight a growing coronavirus epidemic had fallen through and the government is now looking to Brazilian companies to build the devices. "Practically all our purchases of equipment in China are not being confirmed," Minister Luiz Henrique Mandetta said at a news conference. He also said Brazil has hired local unlisted medical equipment maker Magnamed to make 6,000 ventilators in 90 days. Pulp and paper companies Suzano SA and Klabin SA, planemaker Embraer SA, information technology provider Positivo Tecnologia SA and automaker Fiat Chrysler have also offered to help build ventilators, he said.

Real Madrid's soccer players, coaches and "main directors" agreed on a pay cut between 10-20% this year to help the club mitigate a decrease in income "as a result of the suspension of competitions and the paralysis of a large part of its commercial activities". Madrid's basketball team also agreed on a voluntary pay cut.

France reported the increase of hospital death fatalities slowing again, but the presidential palace said nonetheless the national lockdown aimed at containing the disease would be extended. The lockdown, that took effect on March 17 and has already been extended once, will now go beyond April 15. The total death toll, including Tuesday's nursing homes' figures, is up 5% at 10,869.

A bridge on a normally busy road in northern Italy collapsed on Wednesday but only two drivers were caught up in the chaos, the fire brigade said, as the coronavirus lockdown has largely halted traffic. A spokesman for the fire brigade said the 260 metre bridge near the town of Aulla, roughly midway between Genoa and Florence, in the northern tip of Tuscany, collapsed at 10:25 a.m.). A team of the fire brigade were still on site, the spokesman added. Two drivers were taken to hospital with minor injuries, he added.

Around 85% of hotel workers in Portugal will be temporarily laid off in April due to the impact the fast-spreading coronavirus is having on the country's tourism-dependent economy, Hotels Association AHP said on Wednesday. It said 93.8% of Portuguese hotels will or have already applied to be able to temporarily lay off workers. The measure allows companies to temporarily suspend jobs or reduce working hours but does not let them fire or make workers redundant.

Twice Olympic 800 metres finalist Donato Sabia has died from COVID-19 at the age of 56, the Italian National Olympic Committee (CONI) said on Wednesday. CONI said in a statement that Sabia had been in the intensive care unit of the San Carlo hospital on Potenza, in the southern Italian region of Basilicata, for "a few days." According to CONI, he is the first Olympic finalist in the world to die from the virus.

South Korea's government said on Wednesday it will increase restrictions on people traveling from overseas to prevent new coronavirus infections. The country will temporarily suspend visa waivers for citizens of countries that have imposed travel bans on South Koreans, Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun said. The change will affect travelers from at least 88 countries, including Australia, Canada, Russia, and France, among others.

The German economy, Europe's largest, probably shrank by 9.8% in the second quarter, its biggest decline since records began in 1970, due to measures imposed to slow the spread of the coronavirus, Germany's leading think tanks said on Wednesday. That would be more than double the drop seen in the first quarter of 2009, during the global financial crisis, the institutes said.

India is considering plans to seal off coronavirus hotspots in Delhi, Mumbai and parts of the south while easing curbs elsewhere as a way out of a three-week lockdown that has caused deep economic distress, officials said on Wednesday. "To manage coronavirus, we are working on a cluster containment strategy," said Health Ministry joint secretary Lav Agarwal, leading the effort to tackle the outbreak.

Malaysia's biggest palm oil-producing state, Sabah, will uphold its decision for plantations and millers in six districts to suspend operations until mid-April as part of its coronavirus containment measures. Sabah chief minister Shafie Apdal told reporters after a cabinet meeting on Wednesday that the state's first priority was to save lives, and that it will only look at challenges facing businesses, factories and plantations after that.

Government spokeswoman Maria Jesus Montero said Europeans will begin to lose trust in the EU if it does not act together in the crisis, which she compared to the Second World War. "We need the help of other countries, and that's why the European Community was originally formed, at that time after a physical war, now we are fighting a war against an epidemic," she said in an interview on Antena 3 TV channel.

The British Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) set out temporary measures on Wednesday to help companies raise cash quickly to get through the epidemic that has shuttered much of the economy. The FCA said one of the measures is that companies with a premium listing on the London Stock Exchange can ask the FCA for permission not to hold a general meeting to approve a capital raising.

The number of coronavirus cases in Russia rose by more than 1,000 for the second day running, taking the total to 8,672, the crisis response centre said on Wednesday. The number of reported cases rose by 1,175, a record daily rise, while deaths increased by five to 63, the centre said.

The European Central Bank told euro zone finance ministers that the euro zone could need fiscal measures worth up to 1.5 trillion euros to tackle the economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 epidemic, officials told the news agency Reuters. But at a videoconference that ended on Wednesday without a deal after 16 hours of talks, Germany, the Netherlands and other northern European countries were ready to support EU measures worth only 500 billion euros, officials who participated in the meeting said.

The Chinese city where the new coronavirus emerged ended its more-than two-month lockdown on Wednesday, even as the northern city Suifenhe ordered restrictions on its residents amid concern about a second wave of infections. Wuhan has reported just three new confirmed infections in the past 21 days and only two in the past two weeks.

Iran's President Hassan Rouhani said on Wednesday the International Monetary Fund would be guilty of "discriminatory behaviour" unless it provides $5 billion in emergency funding to help Tehran fight the coronavirus outbreak. "I urge international organisations to fulfil their duties ... we are a member of the IMF ... There should be no discrimination in giving loans," Rouhani said in a televised cabinet meeting.